A home base
A stable employment relationship and a team to return to, where the actual arrangement supports it.
More skills.
More room for life.
AI, robotics and extended reality (XR) could help people learn new work while established businesses improve their capabilities. Try Everything Once explores supported moves between roles; Intermittent Retirement explores planned periods for family, travel, learning and rest.
Try something new, with support
Try Everything Once is an invitation to explore different kinds of work through paid, supervised learning. Someone might try food production, repair, care, coding or creative work. Others might stay in a profession they love. Experienced people would remain essential as teachers and specialists.
A wider field
Paid, supervised placements and learning with responsibilities suited to the participant's competence.
A next chapter
A pathway into another role, a return to the original one, entrepreneurship or an agreed period away.
Sources for this section
Learn at the point of work
Extended reality (XR) includes virtual, augmented and mixed reality. A worker could see instructions beside the actual equipment, practise a procedure in a simulation, or bring a remote specialist into the task. AI could help find the right guidance for the job and the person's experience.
These are proposed ways to support learning and judgement. Skilled mentors, assessed competence and safe operating procedures would still matter. The useful test is whether people can learn and carry out the work reliably.
Make room for breaks throughout life
Intermittent Retirement means planned periods away from work throughout life, for family, recovery, study, travel or rest. An arrangement would need to cover income, staffing and returning to work. The planner below helps you sketch preferences; it does not approve leave or promise funding.
Sources for this section
Help people move between opportunities
The proposed ready SET Co-op, short for sustainable employment and training cooperative, could organise mentors, host workplaces, equipment and paid learning time. It could also help with handovers and returning to a role. Employers would receive the information needed for the work, with private interests and health records handled separately.
Sources for this section
Agree on pay and responsibilities
Every placement would need clear arrangements for pay, supervision, insurance, duties and employment entitlements. Volunteering would remain separate from paid work. The linked Fair Work guidance is a starting point for checking what applies when a business changes owners.
Sources for this section
S06 · Fair Work Ombudsman: When businesses change owners D05 · Fiji-Australia Vuvale Union Submission
A funded break: Victoria’s teaching service
Victoria’s published sabbatical scheme lets eligible staff work for one to four years at 80% of their salary, then take a period of leave funded by the salary set aside. It provides a concrete example of planning income and time together.
Why the tool starts this way
The starting plan uses the four-year option: 48 months of work and 12 months of leave. At an unchanged salary, setting aside 20% for four years is equivalent to 80% of one year’s salary. The planner uses whole months as an approximate display of the 52-week option. This is a worked example of that scheme, not a named employee’s history or a general leave entitlement. Your employment terms and approval still matter.
Victorian teaching service: sabbatical leavePublished flexible-work options
Plan in your browser
My next chapter
Sketch preferences, not an approved employment arrangement. Save only when you choose, or download a Markdown copy to keep elsewhere.